New York Prison Break Ends With Both Convicts Shot [Updated]

Update (6/29): With Sweat in custody, details of the escaped convict's plans have surfaced. The New York Times reports that Sweat and Richard Matt intended to connect with their prison insider, Joyce Mitchell, kill her husband, then flee in his car to Mexico. Gov. Cuomo told the press that Sweat and Matt eventually parted ways five days ago because "Sweat felt Matt was slowing him down."

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Update (6/28, 4:05 P.M.): A state trooper shot David Sweat near the town of Constable, New York, on Sunday, The New York Times reports. At time of publication, Sweat's condition was unknown, but one source told The Times that he was alive and in custody.

Update (6/26, 4:32 P.M.): According to reports, Richard Matt has been fatally shot. His accomplice, David Sweat, is still at large. Matt was shot in the Franklin County, New York, area near a pair of hunting cabins that investigators believe the convicts had stayed in.

Update (6/12, 6:50 P.M.): The New York State Police have arrested Mitchell, charging the prison worker for Promoting Prison Contraband 1st Degree, and Criminal Faciliatation 4th degree, both felonies.

Update (6/12, 10:00 A.M.): Andrew Wylie, the Clinton County district attorney, told reporters that Joyce Mitchell, an industrial training supervisor suspected of assisting two escaped murderers, did not provide the men with power tools. CNN previously reported that Mitchell supplied David Sweat and Richard Matt with hacksaw blades, drill bits and lighted eyeglasses. Wylie clarified this was not the case, but the employee did smuggle contraband inside the correctional facility. The prosecutor also confirmed that Mitchell was investigated for being "too close" to Sweat.

Meanwhile, six days after the escape, New York State Police continue to search for the inmates along State Route 374 in the town of Plattsburgh, New York.

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Update (6/9): The Daily Newsreports that New York State Police tracked the two escaped convicts to Willsboro, New York, approximately 40 miles south of the prison from which they escaped early Saturday morning. Spokespeople for the police make clear that they do not "have anyone cornered." Authorities descended upon the town, which sits on the shore of Lake Champlain, after receiving a "credible tip" from a civilian that reportedly spotted murderers David Sweat and Richard Matt.

"A report was called in by a citizen of two suspicious men walking down a very rural road in the southern part of our town in the middle of a driving rain storm," Shaun Gillilland, the town supervisor of Willsboro, told the Wall Street Journal on Tuesday afternoon. "When the car this person was in approached, they took off into the fields."

"Clear." About 100 Corrections officers emerge from close sweep of 100s of acres with no fugitive in hand. Heavy rain and dour moods...

A law enforcement agent involved with the manhunt peers into a field in the nearby Boquet, N.Y.

Esquire will continue updating this story as details arrive. Here's the original sequence of events:

If it sounds like a movie, it's because it rarely happens outside the movies. During a 5:30 A.M. bed check on Saturday, June 6, guards at the Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora, New York inspected the cells of convicted killers David Sweat and Richard W. Matt only to find a pair of dummies, complete with papier mache heads sprinkled with clippings of their own hair. Sweat and Matt were gone, burrowed through holes in their cell walls. All that remained were power tools, contraband as mystifying as the plot itself.

Call it TheShawshank Redemption, but you won't be rooting for these criminals.

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Sweat and Matt enacted New York's first prison escape in a decade with methodical and relentless work. According to Governor Andrew Cuomo, the only break out in the prison's 150-year history was "elaborate" and "sophisticated." "We went back and pieced together what they did," he said. "It encompassed drilling through steel walls and steel pipes. So this was not easily accomplished. The Commissioner of Corrections is going to undertake a full investigation."

The Governor's office released these images, detailing the escape plot. Here, a look inside one of the cut-through cells:

Office of the New York State Governor

After cracking through to the prison interior, Sweat and Matt navigated catwalks towards their actual escape route: a two-foot-wide steam pipe.

Office of the New York State Governor

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Office of the New York State Governor

They also left this racist Post-it note, just to remind us they're the bad guys.

Office of the New York State Governor

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Office of the New York State Governor

The pipe took the duo under the prison's 30-foot-wall and out a manhole down the block.

Office of the New York State Governor

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Authorities began a manhunt for Sweat and Matt over the weekend. Their whereabouts remain unknown. "They could be literally anywhere," Maj. Charles E. Guess, commander of the New York State Police troop leading the search, told the New York Times. Multiple reports indicate that more than 250 law enforcement officers are involved in the search, amplified by helicopters, K-9 units and bloodhounds. The F.B.I. and the United States Marshals Service are also expanding the search's scope.

David Sweat, pictured left. Richard Matt, pictured right.

Office of the New York State Governor

According to the Governor's office profile, Matt is a 48-year-old white male who stands around six feet tall and 210 pounds. He has "Mexico Forever" tattoo on back, heart art on his chest and left shoulder, and a marine corps insignia on his right shoulder. Matt was in the middle of a 25-year-to-life sentence following his conviction for three counts of murder, three counts of kidnapping, and two counts of robbery after kidnapping, beating to death, and dismembering a 76-year-old male victim on December 3, 1997. Matt arrived to Clinton Correctional in July 2008. Evidently, Matt has prior prison escape experience, having ditched an Erie County Jail in 1986. That only involved scaling a fence and fleeing to Mexico, where he did not remain forever.

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Sweat, Matt's runaway pal, is a 34-year-old white male profiled as 5'11" and 165 pounds. He has tattoos on his left bicep and his right fingers. After murdering a Broome County Sheriff Deputy on July 4, 2002, Sweat earned a life sentence without parole for one count of Murder 1st Degree. The deputy confronted Sweat after he and two other men broke into a fireworks and gun store and stole a dozen handguns and rifles.

A prison insider revealed to the New York Post that authorities are already questioning a female worker (specifically mentioned as not being a guard) that Matt may have wooed into assisting him. The newspaper quotes Detective David Bentley, who assisted in Matt's 1997 arrest. "When [Matt's] cleaned up, he's very handsome and, in all frankness, very well-endowed. He gets girlfriends any place he goes," Bentley tells the Post. ABC claims it's a 51-year-old industrial training supervisor at the prison, though it's unclear if her involvement could be considered "wrongdoing."

On Monday, Cuomo announced a $100,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of Matt and Sweat. Both individuals are considered to be a danger to the public and authorities urge anyone with information to contact the State Police at 518-563-3761. "They are convicted murderers and our first order of business is to ensure they don't inflict any more pain on the community," Cuomo said.

Check back for updates as the police uncover and release additional information.

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